GAZA CITY: Khader Al-Najjar has been unable to leave the Gaza Strip since he returned to the Palestinian territory 25 years ago, not even to seek medical treatment for a spinal ailment or to bid farewell to his mother, who died in Jordan last year.
The reason: Israel refused to allow the Palestinian Authority to issue him a national ID. That made it virtually impossible to leave, even before Israel and Egypt imposed a punishing blockade when the Hamas militant group seized control of Gaza in 2007.
In recent months, Israel has approved residency for thousands of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza in an attempt to ease tensions while maintaining its decades-long control over the lives of more than 4.5 million Palestinians.
“My suffering was huge,” said Al-Najjar, a 62-year-old carpenter, who described a “nightmarish” series of failed attempts to get permits to leave the tiny coastal territory. Now he is among more than 3,200 Palestinians in Gaza who will soon get a national ID.
That will make it easier to travel, but he will still have to navigate a maze of bureaucratic obstacles linked to the blockade. Israel says the restrictions are needed to contain Hamas, while rights groups view the blockade as a form of collective punishment for Gaza’s 2 million Palestinians.
Israel withdrew soldiers and settlers from Gaza in 2005, and Hamas drove out PA forces two years later. But Israel still controls the Palestinian population registry, a computerized database of names and ID numbers. The Palestinians and most of the international community view Gaza as part of the occupied territories.
An estimated tens of thousands of Palestinians do not have legal residency, making it virtually impossible to cross international borders or even the Israeli military checkpoints scattered across the West Bank. Most are people who returned to the territory after living abroad, and Israel refused to place them into the registry.
Ahed Hamada, a senior official in the Hamas-run Interior Ministry, says there are more than 30,000 status-less residents in Gaza alone.
Israel agreed to grant residency to some 13,500 Palestinians in what it presented as a goodwill gesture following recent meetings between Defense Minister Benny Gantz and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. It is the first batch since peace talks broke down more than a decade ago.
Israel’s current government, which consists of parties that support and oppose Palestinian statehood, has ruled out any major initiatives to resolve the conflict but has said it wants to improve living conditions in the territories. It also wants to shore up the increasingly unpopular PA, which governs parts of the West Bank and coordinates security with Israel.
In a statement after meeting with Abbas, Gantz pledged to continue advancing “confidence-building measures in economic and civilian areas.”
Palestinians in Gaza rejoiced and danced as they lined up to receive letters from the PA’s civil affairs authority that will allow them to apply for national IDs and passports. Some shed tears of joy, while others looked on distraught after learning they were not on the list.
Hamas, which has fought four wars with Israel — most recently in May — criticized the Abbas-Gantz meetings, saying they “deviate from the national spirit” of the Palestinian people.
The residency issue dates back to 1967, when Israel seized east Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza in a war with neighboring Arab states. The Palestinians want the three territories to form their future state alongside Israel.
Israel conducted a census three months after the war and only registered Palestinians who were physically present. Israel later allowed some without legal status to visit family on visitor permits. Many Palestinians returned after the Oslo accords in the 1990s and overstayed their permits, hoping their status would be resolved in a final peace agreement that never materialized. Family unifications largely ground to a halt after the outbreak of the second intifada, or Palestinian uprising against Israeli rule, in 2000.
Palestinians are also largely prohibited from moving to the West Bank from Gaza. The latest approvals grant West Bank residency to some 2,800 Palestinians who moved there from Gaza prior to 2007 and who had been at risk of deportation.
Gisha, an Israeli rights group that advocates freedom of movement, says that by presenting the expansion of residency as a goodwill gesture, Israel is merely repackaging something it is obliged to do under international law.
“This is a start, in some ways, but this whole problem has been created by Israel’s stringent policies toward Palestinians under occupation,” said Miriam Marmur, a spokeswoman for Gisha. “There are of course thousands that remain status-less and millions that are still subject to the permit regime.”
Al-Najjar, who lived in Jordan before moving to Gaza, was one of the lucky ones. This month he, his wife and their four children were all granted residency. “Thank God, I can go and visit my sisters and my family (in Jordan) now that we have passports,” he said.
Foreign nationals — mostly Palestinians born in other countries — who have married Palestinians in the territories have found themselves in a similar predicament.
Tareq Hamada said he is still waiting to get residency for his wife, a Palestinian who moved to Gaza from Kuwait in 1997. He said she has dreamed her whole life of making the Muslim pilgrimage to Makkah but has been unable to do so.
Fayeq Al-Najjar, a distant relative of Khader, tried to return to Gaza from Libya in 2008 but was turned away by Egypt because he did not have a national ID. Instead, he snuck in through the smuggling tunnels on the Egyptian border that have since been largely destroyed. He has applied for an ID but does not know if he will be granted one.
“I have sisters in Egypt who I wish to visit,” he said. “I’m 60 years old, when will I get an ID? When I’m on death’s doorstep?“
Some Palestinians get legal status after years in Gaza limbo
https://arab.news/597yx
Some Palestinians get legal status after years in Gaza limbo
- Palestinians and most of the international community view Gaza as part of the occupied territories
- An estimated tens of thousands of Palestinians do not have legal residency, making it virtually impossible to cross international borders or even the Israeli military checkpoints scattered across the West Bank
Doctor at Brown University deported to Lebanon despite US judge’s order
- Alawieh, a Lebanese citizen, has an H-1B visa authorizing her to work at Brown University, yet she was detained on Thursday after returning from travel to Lebanon
- Her expulsion is set to be the focus of a hearing on Monday before a federal judge in Boston, who demanded information on whether his order had been “willfully” disobeyed
BOSTON: A Rhode Island doctor who is an assistant professor at Brown University’s medical school has been deported to Lebanon even though a judge had issued an order blocking the US visa holder’s immediate removal from the country, according to court papers.
The expulsion of Dr. Rasha Alawieh, 34, is set to be the focus of a hearing on Monday before a federal judge in Boston, who on Sunday demanded information on whether US Customs and Border Protection had “willfully” disobeyed his order.
US District Judge Leo Sorokin, an appointee of Democratic President Barack Obama, said he had received a “detailed and specific” timeline of the events from an attorney working on Alawieh’s behalf that raised “serious allegations” about whether his order was violated.
HIGHLIGHTS
• Rasha Alawieh was removed after arriving at Boston airport
• Judge questions if Customs and Border Protection disobeyed his order
• Court hearing set for Monday
The agency has not said why she was removed. But her expulsion came as Republican US President Donald Trump’s administration has sought to sharply restrict border crossing and ramp up immigration arrests.
A CBP spokesperson, Hilton Beckham, in a statement said migrants bear the burden of establishing admissibility and that the agency’s officers “adhere to strict protocols to identify and stop threats.”
Alawieh, a Lebanese citizen who lives in Providence, was detained on Thursday after arriving at Logan International Airport in Boston after traveling to Lebanon to see relatives, according to a lawsuit filed by her cousin, Yara Chehab.
She had held a visa to be in the United States since 2018, when she first came to complete a two-year fellowship at Ohio State University before then completing a fellowship at the University of Washington and then moving to the Yale-Waterbury Internal Medicine Program, which she completed in June.
While in Lebanon, the US consulate issued Alawieh an H-1B visa authorizing her entry into the United States to work at Brown University, the lawsuit said. Such visas are reserved for people from other countries who are employed in specialty occupations.
Despite that visa, CBP detained her at the airport for reasons her family members have still not been provided, according to the lawsuit, which argued her rights were being violated.
In response to the lawsuit, Sorokin on Friday evening issued orders barring Alawieh’s removal from Massachusetts without 48 hours’ notice to the court and requiring her to be brought to a court hearing on Monday.
Yet according to the cousin’s attorneys, after that order was issued, Alawieh was flown to Paris, where she was then set to board a flight for Lebanon that had been scheduled for Sunday.
Sorokin on Sunday directed the government to provide a legal and factual response by Monday morning ahead of the previously scheduled hearing and to preserve all emails, text messages and other documents concerning Alawieh’s arrival and removal.
Concerns have also been raised in other cases about whether the Trump administration is complying with court rulings blocking parts of its agenda.
The Trump administration on Sunday said it has deported hundreds of Venezuelans to El Salvador under seldom-used wartime powers, despite a federal judge’s order temporarily barring such deportations.
Sudanese police accuse RSF paramilitaries after 11 bodies found at bottom of a well in Khartoum
- The bodies of 11 people were recovered Saturday from the deep well in the Fayhaa neighborhood of the city
- Police say the victims were killed by paramilitary by the paramilitary RSF when itwas controlling the area
CAIRO: Sudanese authorities said Sunday many bodies have been found at the bottom of a well in the capital, Khartoum, a few days after the military cleared the area from a notorious paramilitary group.
The bodies of 11 people, including women and children, were recovered Saturday from the deep well in the Fayhaa neighborhood of the city, according to police.
Col. Abdul-Rahanan Mohamed Hassan, head of the civil defense’s field team in Khartoum, said a search of the the area was mounted after residents reported that they found a dead body in the well.
“We found inside this well different characters (bodies), males and females, adults and children,” Hassan said, adding that authorities were still searching the well.
Police say the victims were killed by the Rapid Support Forces before being thrown into the well when the paramilitary force was controlling the area. The military retook the area earlier this month as part of its sweeping advances in Khartoum and its sister city of Omdurman.
There was no immediate comment from the RSF.
Afraa Al-Hajj Omar, a resident of the nearby Hajj Youssef neighborhood, said that the RSF killed many people in the area and their bodies were left for days in the streets. She said many bodies were thrown in the well. “They robbed us, beat us, and tortured us,” she said.
Sudan was plunged into chaos in April 2023 when simmering tensions between the military and the powerful paramilitary Rapid Support Forces exploded into open warfare across the country.
At least 20,000 people have been killed, though the number is likely far higher. The war has driven more than 14 million people from their homes and pushed parts of the country into famine.
The fighting, which wrecked Khartoum and other urban areas has been marked by atrocities including mass rape and ethnically motivated killings that amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, especially in the western region of Darfur, according to the United Nations and international rights groups.
The war has intensified in recent months, with the military making steady advances against the RSF in Khartoum and elsewhere in the country.
Syria’s new rulers seek aid boost at EU conference
- Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad Al-Shibani is expected to take part in the event, along with dozens of European and Arab ministers and representatives of international organizations
BRUSSELS: The interim government in Damascus will take part on Monday in an annual international conference to gather aid pledges for Syria, facing dire humanitarian problems and an uncertain political transition after the fall of Bashar Assad.
The conference has been hosted by the European Union in Brussels since 2017 — but took place without the government of Assad, who was shunned for his brutal actions in a civil war that began in 2011.
After Assad’s overthrow in December, EU officials hope to use the conference as a fresh start, despite concerns about deadly violence this month that pitted the new, Islamist rulers against Assad loyalists.
“This is a time of dire needs and challenges for Syria, as tragically evidenced by the recent wave of violence in coastal areas,” EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said.
But she said it was also “a time of hope,” citing an agreement struck on March 10 to integrate the Kurdish-led and US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, which control much of Syria’s northeast, into new state institutions.
Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, the group that toppled Assad, is designated as a terrorist organization by the United Nations. But EU officials want to engage with the new rulers as long as they stick to pledges to make the transition inclusive and peaceful.
Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad Al-Shibani is expected to take part in the event, along with dozens of European and Arab ministers and representatives of international organizations.
EU officials say the conference is particularly important as the United States under President Donald Trump is making huge cutbacks to humanitarian and development aid programs.
Last year’s conference yielded pledges of 7.5 billion euros ($8.1 billion) in grants and loans, with the EU pledging 2.12 billion for 2024 and 2025.
About 16.5 million people in Syria require humanitarian assistance, with 12.9 million people needing food aid, according to the EU.
The destruction from the war has been compounded by an economic crisis that has sent the Syrian pound tumbling and pushed almost the entire population below the poverty line. ($1 = 0.9192 euros)
Families of Syrians who disappeared during its civil war say the search must go on
- A United Nations-backed commission on Friday urged the interim government led by Ahmad Al-Sharaa to preserve evidence and anything they can document from prisons in the ongoing search for the disappeared
DARAA, Syria: Family members of Syrians who disappeared in the country’s 14-year civil war gathered in the city of Daraa on Sunday to urge the newly installed interim government to not give up on efforts to find them.
The United Nations in 2021 estimated that over 130,000 Syrians were taken away and disappeared during the war, many of them detained by former President Bashar Assad’s network of intelligence agencies as well as by opposition fighters and the extremist Daesh group. Advocacy group The Syrian Campaign says some 112,000 are still missing.
When rebels led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham overthrew Assad in December, they stormed prisons and released detainees from the ousted government’s dungeons. Families of the missing quickly rushed to the prisons seeking their loved ones. While there were some reunions, rescue services also discovered mass graves around the country and used whatever remains they could retrieve to identify the dead.
On Sunday, the 14th anniversary of the countrywide uprisings that spiraled into civil war, Wafa Mustafa held a placard of her father, Ali, who was detained by the Assad government’s security forces in 2013. She fled a week later to Germany, fearing she would also be detained, and hasn’t heard from him since.
Like many other Syrians who fled the conflict or went into exile for their activism, she often held protests and rallied in European cities. Now, she has returned twice since Assad’s ouster, trying to figure out her father’s whereabouts.
“I’m trying, feeling both hope and despair, to find any answer on the fate of my father,” she said. “I searched inside the prisons, the morgues, the hospitals, and through the bodies of the martyrs, but I still couldn’t find anything.”
A United Nations-backed commission on Friday urged the interim government led by Ahmad Al-Sharaa to preserve evidence and anything they can document from prisons in the ongoing search for the disappeared. The commission also urged the new government to pursue perpetrators.
Some foreign nationals are missing in Syria as well, notably American journalist Austin Tice, whose mother visited Syria in January and met with Al-Sharaa. Tice has not been heard from other than a video released weeks after his disappearance in 2012 that showed him blindfolded and held by armed men.
Syria’s civil war began after Assad crushed largely peaceful protests in 2011, one of the popular uprisings against Arab rulers known as the Arab Spring. Half a million people were killed during the conflict, and more than 5 million left the country as refugees.
Houthi leader calls for ‘million-strong’ rally after deadly US strikes
- Abdulmalik Al-Houthi defiant in the face of US threat to continue strikes until the Houthis end their attacks on shipping
- Hodeidah in western Yemen targeted in latest US strikes, Houthi-affiliated Al Masirah TV reports
SANAA: The leader of Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels on Sunday called for a “million-strong” march of defiance after deadly US strikes hit the capital, Sanaa, and other areas.
“I call on our dear people to go out tomorrow on the anniversary of the Battle of Badr in a million-strong march in Sanaa and the rest of the governorates,” Abdulmalik Al-Houthi said in a televised address, referring to a celebrated military victory by the Prophet Muhammad.
Hours after Al-Houthi's defiant call, the Houthi-affiliated Al Masirah TV early on Monday reported that the US launched two strikes targeting Hodeidah, a port city in western Yemen controlled by the Houthis.
Hodeidah has served as a launching pad for Houthi attacks on commercial vessels passing through Bab Al-Mandab Strait, which connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean.
The US military has yet to make any statement regarding the reported strikes on Hodeidah.
On Sunday, the Houthi-run Health Ministry said the overnight US strikes killed at least 53 people, including five women and two children, and wounded almost 100 in the capital of Sanaa and other provinces, including Saada, the rebels’ stronghold on the border with Saudi Arabia.
The overnight airstrikes were one of the most extensive attacks against the Houthis since the war in Gaza began in October 2023.
President Donald Trump has vowed to use “overwhelming lethal force” until the Houthis cease their attacks, and warned that Tehran would be held “fully accountable” for their actions.
“We’re not going to have these people controlling which ships can go through and which ones cannot. And so your question is, how long will this go on? It will go on until they no longer have the capability to do that,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio told CBS on Sunday. He said these are not the one-off retaliation strikes the Biden administration carried out after Houthi attacks.
The Houthis have repeatedly targeted international shipping in the Red Sea, sinking two vessels, in what they call acts of solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza, where Israel has been at war with Hamas, another Iranian ally.
The attacks stopped when a Israel-Hamas ceasefire took hold in January — a day before Trump took office — but last week the Houthis said they would renew attacks against Israeli vessels after Israel cut off the flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza this month.
There have been no Houthi attacks reported since then.
